David shrugged. ‘Yes. I hadn’t picked up any communication from dogs for years so Churchill must have really wanted to talk to me. I think the boyfriend was more fun to play with than I was. Churchill seemed particularly keen on the pigs’ ears he brought too. It wasn’t all Immy’s fault – I was studying, and working long hours. She deserved better. But I took the hint, we split up, and lo and behold, she married pigs’ ear man.’

‘Churchill went with her?’

‘He did. Fickle little sod.’ David stretched out his long legs under the table. ‘But the silver lining was that Churchill made me think about what he was picking up, what our relationship looked like from his perspective. And from that, what sort of negative impact destructive human relationships have on pets. It sent me down a different rabbit hole …’

‘Appropriate.’

‘… of research, most of which has been useful and fascinating, and here I am. Ten years down the line.’

Tara nodded but her brain was industriously filing away snippets of information. David had an ex. Called Immy, now married. He’d lived in south London, ten years ago. This was a veritable deluge of information.

‘And …’ She was about to ask, artlessly, if there was a girlfriend on the scene now, when he slapped his hands on the table, ending the conversation.

‘Anyway, enough work talk for tonight! I need to make a move – you probably do too.’

‘Yes,’ said Tara, and felt a tang of something like disappointment.

She got a taxi home – David insisted he’d prefer to walk, and she didn’t argue.

There was a light on in the studio and Tara thought, Oh, Dad must be back. He’d been away for a few days now; he hadn’t said where he was going, and she didn’t think they were at the point where she could demand to know his movements. She presumed he was checking in with his other life. She still wasn’t quite ready to hear about that.

Tara dumped her coat over the banister and hung her bag up, flipping through the takeaway leaflets in the pile by the door.

Since the IKEA trip, they’d shared a couple of takeaways from restaurants that Keith ‘wanted to try out’, claiming he needed help to sample the menu properly. Tara had graciously gone along with the excuse. They ate halfway between their houses, outside on the patio area Ruth had created, then went their separate ways. It was … nice. It was starting to feel like the start of something.

Tara scanned the leaflet from a new Nepalese place that was meant to be good. I wonder if Dad wants to split a takeaway, she wondered idly.

She wandered into the kitchen, texting him as she went.

Do you want to go halves on a